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It's a simple question really, but not one with a simple answer. Do you trust our board to sell Declan Rice?

Now this is not meant as an excuse to give West Ham’s board a good kicking, although it may look like it in the end. And no, I am not advocating that we cash in on our greatest asset, although we all know it will happen one day.




Thankfully Declan has not used the Harry Kane method of getting up the noses of his employers, basically staying on a Florida beach far long than expected.

But, and I don’t say this lightly, if someone comes in with a bid north of £80m between now and the end of the transfer window on August 31, do you think our board will turn it down? I’ll just leave that there.

You see I don’t consider the general policy of David Sullivan and his crew does anything to improve and sustain the brand (I know, too American, too Manchester United, sorry).

And all this comes at a time when the brown-nosed brigade amongst our social media who will lose most from any takeover, PAI or anyone, are doing their very best to rubbish the Azerbaijani boys.

You, see, the thought of our boy Sully getting his hands on £100m or so doesn’t bear thinking about. I mean, would he react like Aston Villa have, or like Spurs are doing? Of course Kane is going to Manchester City, how could you think otherwise.

Would we spend carefully and wisely to replenish our squad - or would the money find its way into sorting out whatever financial crisis that can be conjured up at the drop of a hat? Billionaires are clever like that.

My old fella used to say that rich people are rich because they spend everybody else’s money and not their own. I do miss my dad’s take on life!

You see, watching how Manchester City have planned carefully for all this, why would they honestly mess with FFP now with the world watching? How Villa and Spurs are reacting goes against the grain of the Sullivan empire.

Absolutely nothing we do smacks of giving a toss about the long term future. Now I am no advocate of PAI, but at least they suggest they will think and grow long term. All the current board seem to do is to throw some fertiliser on the problem every window or so and hope the weeds don’t engulf us.

We work hand to mouth, we panic when the season ticket money isn’t there quickly enough, we panic when the TV money is threatened. We don’t have enough equity, cash flow is crap, we borrow too much from banks to pay debts. We buy older players and rarely sell on for a profit. Everything we do is short term.




For the first time in living memory we have younger, saleable players. Declan Rice, Jarrod Bowen, Tomas Soucek, Ben Johnson, Pablo Fornals and Said Benhrama. David Moyes has banged on about having a younger squad for months, all good planning. But, hey, there’s always the nutjobs who keep throwing in the "dithering" rubbish.

I have to ask sometimes whether this line is coming out of the club through the brown-nose brigade in order to cover their own inadequacies.

We actually should not be frightened to sell our best assets, like Leicester do. Look where they are having shipped out Harry Maguire, Ben Chilwell, N’golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez. Even Danny Drinkwater got them £35m.

All this is ploughed back into the club. They regenerate their squad with careful buying, they have a long term plan, they are everything that West Ham are not and they seem to do everything that Sullivan won’t do.

Our owners are holding our club back. That’s why many sensible folk, not just the "we have to march" boys know we need to change at the top. That’s why many wouldn’t trust them to sell Rice.

These questions about how we would react to a Rice sale come because of the £100m Jack Grealish sale to Manchester City. "How can they manage that, how can they buy Kane too?" has been the theme - "surely they are breaking FFP rules?" The same rules I see being put forward to explain our inactivity in the transfer market.

Its not really fair to compare us to City, the two clubs dwell in different worlds. But they start from the same basics. The owners have enough liquidity into the company to cover cash flow. The club have accumulated players of a decent age and quality to have players to sell.

I can only think of Dimitri Payet and Marko Arnautovic as players West Ham have sold on at a notable profit.

But in this financial year, City have picked up a £40m instalment on Leroy Sane’s sale to Bayern Munich, another £11m sell on from Jadon Sancho’s move from Dortmund to Manchester United and another £80m from the sale of squad players frankly I had never heard of - Angelino, Harrison, Nmecha, Herrara, Porro, Rogers, and Ilic.

So that’s about £130m and when they sell Bernardo Silva, probably to Arsenal, that will cover the Kane deal, too.

I know they're not a realistic comparison with us, but Villa are. They knew Grealish was going some while ago, you sense. They have bought in Emi Buendia, Ashley Young and Leon Bailey, while having a punt for Tammy Abraham and James Ward-Prowse too.




I ask you, could Moyes expect that sort of backing if Rice, or a Jarrod Bowen for that matter, was sold on? Come on, that’s the easy part of the question.

I suppose what I am trying to get at via a long, scenic route, is that there has to be new owners at West Ham and they may not the the knights in shinning armour we wish for. There is no such thing as a romantic, Jack Walker-style owner any more. It may well be the rich and devious, but that’s the way of the world.

I am not sure I can hear myself saying this, but profit is king (sorry).

However, I did find it faintly amusing that a couple of porn barons were taking the moral high ground over dealing with "people like this who are only interested in the property side". So apart from all shagging videos, didn’t our beloved owners flog off Upton Park in a property deal?

Mind you, I did like the Athletic article on the Azerbaijani wide boys and the cannabis farm, the link with a British government minister - of course there would be one - and the debate over whether this mob can go home to Baku in safety.

And of course there has been all that bad-mouthing of PAI by West Ham-related social media guys who will lose their alleged contacts inside the club if there happened to be an unfortunate change of ownership.

The funniest though was the rubbishing of Rio Ferdinand’s career - don't forget we got £18m for him and he can hardly be blamed for how it was wasted on Liverpool's dross. And then there was the assault on Lyn Garner, the LLDC CEO, for having the temerity to talk with the prospecting buyers of the club.

Her job, first and foremost is to protect the taxpayer on behalf of the stadium owners and, in effect, the government. What utter nonsense it is to suggest that she should do otherwise than answer questions and spell out how the terms of the lease are carried out.

And everyone surely knows the LLDC will be phased out soon. But then again, the LLDC and our manager are easy meat for such attacks.

I do not believe Moyes is dithering, he simply won’t be lumbered with players he does not want or considers not good enough. And with about £30m to spend, say sources, he will once again turn water into wine.

Just don’t sell Declan Rice from under his feet and pocket the cash.

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